AMBERGER, Christoph - b. ~1505 Augsburg, d. 1562 Augsburg - WGA

AMBERGER, Christoph

(b. ~1505 Augsburg, d. 1562 Augsburg)

Amberger was an Augsburg portrait painter whose works resemble those of Holbein, but with a strong Venetian influence, perhaps due to Paris Bordone, who may have visited Augsburg in 1540.

Christoph Amberger was a noted portraitist whose patrons came from the upper classes. He worked in the service of Emperor Charles V, whom he painted and for whom he restored Titian’s portrait of the Emperor now in the Prado Museum. In around 1525 he went to Italy, which may have influenced his painting.

There is a signed altarpiece of 1560 in St Anna, Augsburg, but the only signed portrait by him seems to be the Emperor Charles V (Berlin). There are works in Augsburg, Birmingham (Barber Institute), Glasgow, Munich, Philadelphia (Johnson), Toledo, Ohio, Vienna and York.

Christoph Fugger

The painting shows the influence of the Florentine Mannerist painters.

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Goldsmith Jörg Zürer of Augsburg

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Portrait of Felicitas Seiler

Amberger was a significant Swabian Renaissance portraitist working in Augsburg. He was probably the pupil of Hans Burgkmair and was influenced by Hans Holbein. He made well characterized portraits of scholars, citizens and princes.

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Portrait of Matthäus Schwarz

Breaking away from the usually plain background of German portraits, Amberger here draws upon a compositional structure normally found in Netherlandish painting. He places the sitter in an interior, with a window through which we can see a stormy and mountainous landscape painted in soft blue tones, which become blurred as they recede into the background. The sitter is seated and looks out at the viewer, leaning on the edge of a table. The various objects around him refer to his profession. Matthäus Schwarz was accountant to the Fugger family, Germany’s leading financiers, and was also the author of number of treatises on economics.

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Portrait of a Young Man

Until 1861 the painting was attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger. The picture, showing Venetian innfluences, is a masterpiece of the Renaissance painting in Augsburg. A companion-piece Portrait of a Young Woman is also in the Hermitage.

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Portrait of a Young Woman

This is the companion-piece of the Portrait of a Young Man.

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Portrait of the Cosmographer Sebastien Münster

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